Being held at gunpoint, pretending to be drunk so he can slip away from his minders and being woken up every day by hypnotic music and propaganda blaring out of speakers - these are just some of the everyday goings on witnessed by an Australian tourist in North Korea.

Mark Fahey has had a 40-year fascination with the communist country that is shut off from the world, crossing the border four times in four years in an attempt to see what life is really like for the country's oppressed citizens.

On one visit, he had a soldier's rifle stuck in his back after he strayed from his tourist party - but escaped with some amazing and unsanctioned images.

Mr Fahey, 54, a business developer from Sydney, told Daily Mail Australia the country wakes to eery, ear piercing music which is played through speakers in the street at 6am for about 20 minutes.

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Mark Fahey visited North Korea four times in four years to access photos and information to reveal the true North Korea to the outside world

Tourists never saw the true side of North Korea with the capital city Pyongyang portrayed as the perfect world

A propaganda mural in a high school floor, normally not accessible to tourists, that encourages students to study hard so they can have a chance to kill the enemies: the Americans and Japanese

That strange alarm clock is followed by propaganda speeches at 7am and then marching music at 8am as downtrodden citizens make their way to their jobs, which usually involves 12 to 14-hour shifts working for state-run companies.

And there's no rest from Kim Jong Un's message at work either as propaganda continues to play on more speakers throughout the day.

One of Mr Fahey’s most surreal moments came when he asked one of the minders about the early morning music and was met with an unexpected response.

‘He looked at me like I was crazy and said “what music?”,’ he said. ‘Instead of being educated they are trained – they are not taught to be inquisitive like we are in the west.’

The dimly-lit hallway of a high school in Pyongyang. The country has a limited production of electricity, so buildings use as little energy as possible

Just like most people who visited North Korea, Mr Fahey joined a travel group with two tour guides, or minders, who controlled everything that the tourists saw.

It was a punishing itinerary, often as long as 14 hours a day of sightseeing in the hope visitors would be worn out and pass out in the evening, preventing them from sneaking out on their own.

But Mr Fahey, who was an expert on the propaganda long before landing in the country, played the part of a ‘useful idiot’ and would regurgitate the country’s brainwashed beliefs about their devotion to Kim Jong Un and his army to the naive minders.

Once befriending his trusty travel guides with a tipple or two in the evening, Mr Fahey pretended to drunkenly stagger off to bed - but would in fact sneak off for up to hours at a time.

'The whole country is a mass religious cult - it’s very much like The Hunger Games, you don’t choose where you live or travel outside of a 25-30km radius without a permit,' he said.

‘I was never fearful as I thought the worst would that happen is I would get detained and deported.’

Although Mr Fahey never got caught being out at night, there were a few occasions when he was found sneaking off during the day, including on a visit to the sacred mountain of Mount Baekdu on his first trip.

‘The minders let us look around on our own for two hours only because we were so remote but I found military tunnels then next thing I know I had a gun in my back,’ he said.

‘They marched me away from the area and took my photos but not my memory card so I was able to retrieve the photos back in Australia – this is one of the many ways the North Koreans are so inept.’

The portraits of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il in a subway car in Pyongyang

A shrine celebrating the Kim family in the entrance of a building in Pyongyang. These shrines are present in practically every building, Fahey says

A propaganda painting showing Kim Il Sung, the first leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea,his wife, Kim Jong Suk and and baby Kim Jong-Il, who would later succeed his father as Supreme Leader

Another daring daylight moment was when Mr Fahey managed to sneak away during a tour of a high school when he pretended that he urgently needed a toilet.

'They let me go on my own but only because I had known them for a couple of weeks,' he said. 'I saw a propaganda mural in a high school floor, normally not accessible to tourists, that encourages students to study hard so they can have a chance to kill the enemies: the Americans and Japanese.'

When he quickly dashed up the stairwell on his supposed bathroom break, he also saw a confronting poster of North Korean students stabbing members of what represented the American army with a fountain pen.

'Occasionally when I would sneak away for three or four minutes during the day I would get caught but I would play the stupid tourist and act confused,' he said. 'I took about 10,000 photos on each trip and about 60 per cent of those were taken without permission.'

He recalls not being allowed to take photos of an ox pulling a hoe on the street because it didn't symbolise an advanced country.

Mr Fahey is satisfied with never being able to return to North Korea after going public with his agenda because he feels he has all of the information he was hoping for.

Each trip took up to 12 months of preparation with his modes of transport varying from planes, a train and even one time by walking over the border from China.

He had to conceal his electronic devices including radio and TV receivers inside consumer products such as cameras, USB stick and Ipods to ensure the equipment wasn’t confiscated at the borders.

Fahey had to conceal his electronic devices including radio and TV receivers inside consumer products such as cameras, USB stick and Ipods

Fahey snuck off to the hidden fifth staff floor of his hotel where the propaganda posters against westerners were bold and blatant

Propaganda blares through speakers in the streets all day long throughout North Korea

The mysteriously missing fifth floor of of the Yanggakdo Hotel

North Koreans are taught not to think for themselves but follow the wise teachings of their king

‘They say they are going to destroy the world but they don’t have the capability,’ he said.

‘You are not encouraged to think for yourself as they don’t have a wide variety of information sources – you are to follow the wise teachings of the king.’

Mr Fahey couldn't understand why the hotel he was staying in didn't have a fifth floor until he went snooping and found the floor, which was for staff only, adorned with propaganda posters filling the walls of the hallways.

'A group of us were suspicious so we went to check it out one night,' he said. 'There was a poster saying: "Get revenge 1,000 times against the Americans".'

Mr Fahey said it alarmed him how quickly he was conditioned to a conformist's life.

‘It was really mind-blowing when I got to China and could walk wherever I wanted – I hadn’t even realised what I had lost,’ he said.

‘I gave into my freedoms without even realising – all of sudden there was a sense of colour, advertising and neon lights.’

Mr Fahey said the country’s capital, Pyongyang, is showcased as the perfect city and home to a utopian society.

‘You never saw anything bad because in the capital city Pyongyang is where only the elite live who are part of Kim Jong Un’s army,’ he said.

‘You never got to meet the true North Koreans you only ever saw them working in fields when you were on a train.’

The forced image was clearly working with a good portion of visitors as Mr Fahey was surprised by how many within the tour group believed the facade that was put on for the westerners.

'I would say half of the tour group swallowed the propaganda,' he said. 'They became apologists for the most vile regime on the planet.'

Mr Fahey described the country as a surreal fantasy land.

‘The tour is like a theme park where you are being taken to different propaganda rides,’ he said. ‘The leaders are like cartoon characters always in the same clothes like Bart Simpson.’

Children dancing during an elementary school propaganda concert

Mr Fahey's contraption: a coathanger used as a radio antenna

The interior of a fertilizer factory, which is believed to be a covert chemical weapons plant